Indo-China boundary talks: Beijing may name new emissary

NEW DELHI: China may appoint a new interlocutor or special representative for boundary talks with India after the 19th party congress of the Communist Party of China next week, a decision that will lead to the first edition of dialogue since resolution of the Doklam stand-off. Yang Jiechi, China’s state councillor and special representative for boundary talks with India, may retire after the party Congress, according to experts who have followed the subject.

There are reports that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi is among the frontrunners to succeed Yang. National security advisor Ajit Doval, taking over from his predecessor SS Menon, has been India’s special representative for boundary negotiations with China since November 2014. He and Yang have held two rounds of negotiations so far—the 18th round in Delhi in 2015 and the 19th round in Beijing in 2016.

However, the 20th round to be held in India has not yet been scheduled even as the two sides had decided to conduct dialogue this year.


The party congress (held every five years) will convene in Beijing on October 18 and is all set to endorse a second five-year term for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The 20th round of boundary talks could be delayed further if the Chinese government appointed a new interlocutor after the party congress in Beijing, according to person familiar with the issue.

During the height of the Doklam crisis, Doval had met Yang informally on the sidelines of a BRICS NSA meeting in Beijing on July 28 and discussed the stand off at the trijunction. In many ways, that meeting set off the process to end the stand-off.

Beijing, however, had conveyed to Delhi that the face-off at the Doklam plateau had been out of the purview of the special representatives appointed by China and India to negotiate a settlement of the disputed boundary.

It had argued that since the boundary between the two neighbours at Sikkim sector had already been delimited by the 1890 convention between the UK and China, the bilateral mechanism led by the special representatives had no scope to discuss it.

Delhi had disagreed and pointed it out that while the status of Sikkim as an integral part of India had been settled, India-China boundary in the Sikkim sector had still remained unsettled and a matter of negotiation between the special representatives of the two nations.

While the 75-day face-off ended on August 28, the episode will cast a shadow on the boundary negotiations by the two special representatives. Therefore two officials are expected to discuss measures to avoid such situations in future.

The entire 4,057-km long of Line of Actual Control (LAC) is disputed and both sides have differing perceptions of the LAC.